Sunday, March 9, 2014

Top Brain, Bottom Brain

Neuroscientist Stephen Kosslyn, founding dean of the Minerva Schools higher education project in San Francisco, proposes a new theory of how the brain functions suggesting a top/bottom rather than a right/left model of thinking.

The Theory of Cognitive Modes, as he calls it, suggests that the bottom part of the brain primarily processes input from the senses while the top part devises and carries out plans of action. While we use both parts of the brain at all times, most of us rely on one brain system more often than the other.

"The degree to which you tend to use each system will affect your thoughts, feelings, and behavior in profound ways," Kosslyn explains.

Together with co-author G. Wayne Mille, Kosslyn debunks the dominant left-brain/right-brain theory of cognition that's been popular for half a century and introduces this new hypothesis in chapters that explain its scientific foundations and detail the four basic cognitive modes - Mover, Perceiver, Stimulator, Adaptor - that appear to underlie our thoughts and behaviors.